Blood and Roses
by Heart of Sunshine
Summary: "If you're still breathing, you're the lucky ones; 'cause most of us are heaving through corrupted lungs" from Youth by Daughter. Caesar's Palace December Challenge. What happened after the Games: 'She tried to end it all, and discovered that she was the one-in-a-million that nightlock berries wouldn't work on. She wished they would, so everyone would stop screaming at her.'


"If you're still breathing, you're the lucky ones;

'cause most of us are heaving through corrupted lungs"

from Youth by Daughter.

**Blood and Roses**

_June_

She couldn't look at anything red.

_July_

She didn't eat meat anymore; the memory of raw and bloodied flesh was too much. She didn't touch axes any more. If someone startled her, she thought she was back in the Games, and she tried to kill them. She ended up almost gouging out her little brother's eyes, and for the first time in his life, he was afraid of her. When someone laughed, her warped mind brought her back to when the Careers laughed after killing her twelve year old district partner. She couldn't even go outside, because his family lived next door, and she couldn't look at them without remembering she let their son die.

_August_

She spent whole nights screaming and clawing at her skin, like the ants were still swarming over her. She couldn't eat honey. The Careers poured it on her so the ants would eat her, and they left her for dead. She wished the Capitol had left her too. Anything so the nightmares would go away. She didn't want to feel anything anymore. It was too much.

_September_

A man knocked on the door to take pictures of her, and she broke his neck. She didn't want anyone to see her again, since she was trying to not exist. She spent the rest of the week shivering in her bed and shrieking at every sound or movement. She tried to end it all, and discovered that she was the one-in-a-million that nightlock berries wouldn't work on. She wished they would, so everyone would stop screaming at her.

_October_

They published 'A Biography of the Broken Victor: Ready to Give Up', and she left her house for the first time in months to burn down the store that carried them. It took four Peacekeepers to stop her, and each one was injured, two permanently. She didn't get in trouble, because she was a Victor and 'in shock' and 'disturbed' and 'suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder'. She wished she had gotten in trouble, so they might kill her. When Halloween was revived and a little girl dressed like a District One tribute rang her doorbell, she cut off her own little toe and dropped it out the window. Nobody ever saw the little girl again. She knew she should have been sorry, but she didn't want anyone to goggle at 'The Broken Victor' and say "I got candy from a psycho!" She didn't want anyone do that. She didn't want anyone to even look at her.

_November_

Her foot where she cut the toe off still bled, so she put on a shoe that she swore to never take off again, because she couldn't look at it. Thanksgiving was revived, because the Capitol declared that year 'holiday year'. The turkey was served, and Johanna stayed shaking under the table for the rest of the day, because she thought the sauce was blood. She thought her district partner had sent it. "You're not in the Games any more, Johanna! Calm down!" said her mother. Yeah, Mom? Well, you never were. Go and win the Games, break yourself into a million tiny pieces, and then tell me to calm down.

_December_

She stopped having panic attacks very gradually, and everyone knew she was finally getting better. Then someone gave her a present of a holograph disk of her Games. It was disguised as a classical music disk. When she turned it on and saw it skip straight to the ants, her recovery was set back five months. She never opened another gift as long as she lived. She couldn't even look at a pine tree without having a relapse. There was a white rose design on the edge of the disk.

_January_

President Snow gave her his Victor's _offer_, and she refused, so she came home to find her parents and little brother missing their heads. She screamed so loudly, the capillaries in her face burst, and it looked like the ants had been eating her again.

_February_

Johanna had nightmares every time she fell asleep. "Poor thing," her district partner mocked. "You were so sweet before all this, before you killed me. Not stopping them from killing me is the same as _you _doing it. You've become corrupted, haven't you? It's what happens when you kill an innocent twelve year old. Remember me, and dream of the happiness you'll never have again." She woke up trying to scream, but her vocal cords wouldn't work. It took the rest of the month of operations to fix her. The doctors said it must have been stress, but she saw the beautiful white rose next to her bed with a note.

'Act out again, and you'll lose more than your voice.'

She didn't tell anyone that on the morning she lost her voice, she spit up the shell of a tiny pill. It had a white rose design on the corner.

_March_

The tenth of March was her eighteenth birthday. She wouldn't open any of her presents. In the middle of her cake, there was another white rose and another note. 'Happy birthday, my dear. Hope you like your gift.' A chain hung the decomposed head of her brother right over her pillow. She threw up every bite of food she'd had that day. She kept vomiting and couldn't stop. She became thinner than she'd been as she starved in the arena.

_April_

She woke up one morning to find ants all over her house. She wouldn't move from her bed. There was thick, sweet, sticky honey on the floor in every room, and a white rose made of cake.

'What's wrong, my dear? Didn't you like your birthday present? I thought your brother had a very pretty skull.'

_May_

It was almost time for the Games again. She wanted to dive out her window so she wouldn't have to mentor a girl who would just die immediately. Her strategy had been to appear weak and helpless, and she wished she really had been, so she could've just died.

_June_

Thirteen year old Hama died fifteen seconds into the Games, and all she could think was 'It's not fair.' The next white rose said 'Of course it's not fair, my dear. Life isn't fair.'

Johanna couldn't look at anything white anymore.


End file.
